In an article recently published in The International Journal of Pure and Applied Analytical Chemistry, a group of researchers have hailed your average espresso machine as their go-to tool when it comes to extracting THC, CBD and CBN from cannabis buds.

That’s right – with lab-controlled, fully-developed scientific methods for chemical extraction at their disposal, these researchers chose to use a coffee machine. For over two years.

THC, CBD and CBN are cannabinoids, the class of chemical compounds that naturally occur in cannabis plants. The three are often extracted for medical benefits, each of them contributing to the high you feel when commonly smoking or ingesting marijuana, in their own way.

THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) is what you would most commonly associate with the substance, a euphoric high which affects your behaviour and dopamine flow. CBD (cannabidiol) is extracted for common medicinal purposes such as pain relief and muscle relaxation, and CBN (cannabinol) has the lowest influence, but can reduce anxiety and relieve more specific medical conditions.

The method was cross-referenced against ultrasound-assisted extraction, gaschromatography-mass spectrometry and ion mobility spectrometry, and was found to produce similar results with a much lower extraction time (around one minute).

If you have a hard cap espresso machine lying around, get that lab coat on and start extracting. Not that we’d endorse such a thing.